Routing deliveries as a driver is a lot like playing poker.

Here was the situation on the routing computer:

1 - Blenheim Farm.
2 - Summer Hill
3 - Sweet Air
4 - Dulaney Valley
5 - Cloverland

OMF and AP are both out on the road. I could take #1 and #2 together, but #4 and #5 are a much better double. If I take #1 and #2 together, I’ll miss out on #4 and #5. If I take #1 as a single, I’m risking a sure double (#1 and #2) for two singles if I take #1 and beat back either OMF or AP. It’s a risk, and a calculated one, but I like taking the occasional risk.

As it happens, my risk pays off. OMF gets back to the store first and takes Summer Hill as a single. AP gets back shortly thereafter and takes Sweet Air as a single. I get back and find that the double I was hoping to get has become a triple — a Sunnyview has come in.

It’s called a gamble for a reason. Sometimes it pays to take a risk.

I’m set!

August 21st (Monday) to the 24th (Thursday) at my professor’s West Virginia cabin, convenient to Antietam and Shepardstown. This is totally perfect — it’s the week before school starts, and, well, I’m super excited. This is the first “real” vacation I’ll have taken in years — road trips to visit relatives, while fun, don’t really count.

I didn’t bother showering this morning before work. There was no point. I walked in the door at 9:50, and by ten-thirty I was a sweaty sweltering mess, covered from head to toe in flour and pizza toppings and grease. A shower would’ve been like a scant line of Roman Infantry with interlocking shields and spears against the onrushing German blitzkrieg — nice try, no dice.

We had eighty-three large pizzas to make for a delivery at a quarter of eleven. And thirty pies for an 11:30 delivery immediately after. Our shop has no air conditioning, except for a very large fan engaged in the futile pursuit of trying to blow air out of the store. We have pizza ovens and a sub-oven, and a heating unit for the subs, and the long and short of it is that the Indy gets real fucking hot real fucking quit, particularly in the summer.

Today wasn’t too bad. Later in the lunch, the breeze picked up through the front door and cooled us off. By that point, the pies had long since been delivered, and the day, which started off super-busy, died instantly, crashing to the ground and exploding in a ball of orange fire.

I walked in my door not that long ago. I need to have an appointment with the shower. A cold shower. A nice, long cold shower, with plenty of soap. I tried scrubbing my hands in the sink at work, but even using sponges and steel wool, I’ve still got dough caked in the webbings of my fingers, along my wrist, up my arm.

Mmmm.

Shower.

Omar at The Bull Speaks asks, “Is it possible that the equivalent of slave labor is alive and well on the Gulf Coast in this year of 2006?”

I’m speechless. If I didn’t already not eat at McDonalds, I think I’d be boycotting the company.

On my first delivery, a giant slobbering dog was so happy to see me it ran right into my crotch. The cute woman with the tattoos was too busy writing a check to notice the expression of pain on my face — the dog’s skull went “crash!” and my balls went “oooooo” — and it was more of just, I guess, an aggressive brush. I was feeling better by the time I got back to the store, I just wish tattoo lady had noticed so she might’ve given me a bigger tip.

**

Third to last delivery of the night, the woman insists on telling me the story of about how her little yappy dog bit her postal carrier on his crotch. “His penis was bleeding everywhere!” she’s got her hand on my arm, she’s laughing, meanwhile, my car’s running and I’ve got a delivery getting cold, and, really, do I want to know about how much her dog would enjoy munching on my penis? No. No no no no no no no no no never.

**

I get to a farm house on Blenheim Road. There’s a big collie laying out in the garden … munching on a hedgehog. The hedgehog is, as I walk past it, quite obviously dead. The dog of course is super friendly and wants to nuzzle me — what! Not with that nose, animal! I did feel bad about telling the woman that there’s a half-eaten hedgehog in her front yard (particularly as I’d hate to ruin her appetite) but she just laughs, tosses me a “oh, god, again?” and laughs, so I didn’t feel so bad.

Cell phones. The modern ball and chain.

My old cell phone — the same as the new one — had as its ring tone AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.” Then it went through the wash, I got a new cell phone, and “Hells Bells” was no longer available to download as a ring tone. Or if it was, I couldn’t find it, so I got the Imperial March from Star Wars. Duh-duh-do-duh-da-doo-da-do-da-dah!

I’ve been expanding my mp3 collection lately. Winamp rocks, by the way. “Hells Bells” is one of the songs on my playlist, which is usually set to randomize the track selection.

Every time “Hells Bells” comes on, I reach for my cell phone. It doesn’t matter that the Imperial March has been my ringtone for over a year. It doesn’t matter that I reach for my cell phone when “Hells Bells” comes on the radio. It doesn’t matter that I know I’ve got this completely stupid pavlovian reaction to this fucking ringtone but …

… fuck.

Nasty thought. Next time I watch The Empire Strikes Back, am I going to go for my cell phone?

I may be mistaken, but I do believe I saw a red-light camera installed at the intersection of York and Shawan Roads when I was leaving Gucci Giant tonight. It’s on the island that allows east-bound Shawan traffic to merge without stopping onto southbound York.

So I’m a good chunk of the way through Six Feet Under’s final season. Claire has turned into a total bitch. Brenda has become a mature adult. Nate is regressing. David and Keith have finally made firm commitments to each other and have stopped banging every stray penis they find. Ruth is under a lot of stress regarding her marriage to George. At one point, she complains that he trapped her into taking care of him, but c’mon, Ruth, pull your head out of your ass — you wanted to marry him as much as he did you, what with finally finding a connection with a man after those long meaningless romances since Nate Sr.’s death.

I was thinking last night about the relationships viewers develop with characters in television series and movies. I’ve long held that the relationships we hold with movie characters are, for the most part, shallow. Our relationship consists of a ninety-minute plot, and unless there are sequels, that’s generally where it ends. There’s very little emotional connection to be made — often, while we might be able to empathize with the situation a character finds themselves in, it has more to do with how we imagine ourselves in that situation than any real concern for the character’s well being.

Now imagine the relationship a viewing audience has with a television character. I suspect that one big reason for the massive success of the release of television shows onto DVD has to do with the “relationships” developed by the audience for the characters. Saying “between” would be wrong — the characters are unaware of and don’t care about the audience. When you follow a tv series for a certain period of time, hour-long drama or half-hour sitcom, you begin to develop a relationship with those characters. Don’t believe me?

What’s your favorite tv show? Who is your favorite character? What character do you dislike the most? Why do you have these feelings towards these characters? Probably for the same reason you’ve chosen your friends — you like how they speak, or laugh, you like their attitudes or their commitments. Of course, they’re one-sided relationships — the characters don’t reciprocate our feelings towards them (the ungrateful turdfuckers!).

(And on a deeper level, of course, the relationships between the audience and the characters could almost be described as actually — truthfully — being between the audience and the writers. But that’s neither here nor there, and while the personality of a character may be at first directed by the writing staff, once that personality is developed, it’s rather the reverse, isn’t it?)

I hate it when a show tries to “force” a relationship on the audience. Here’s a good example — the final episode of Lost’s first season, some dude named Arnt (or something) gets himself blown up. I suppose that we, the audience, were supposed to be shocked or surprised or something, but really, I thought, “Huh. A previously unseen character handling dynamite. Didn’t see this coming (NOT!).” The plot that most often springs up is this — a previously never-seen character, who has some strong never-before-mentioned bond with a main character, dies. The main character is tortured and grieves, but we usually don’t because we’ve never met the dead guy before, so why do we fucking care?

A great example of this story being done well, however, comes early in Homicide’s third season. In this case, the audience bonds with Detective Meldrick Lewis, who must confront the death of his partner, Crosceti. It’s a powerful episode, and not because of the existing bond with Crosceti — we’d only seen him in ten or so episodes, the first two seasons were very short — but because of how strongly we identified with Lewis’ loss and confusion and anger. At the end, when he finally is convinced that his friend killed himself, he breaks down, and I know I felt my eyes getting moist.

Good tv shows are good because we care for the characters. Set in a hospital, or a space station, or a funeral home … whatever the concept or the setting or the gimick, if the audience doesn’t care for the characters, the show is going to suck the big one.

Like Brass Knuckles, only with concepts on them. You know, you punch someone with a “concept knuckle” (engraved with the ‘concept’ you wish to communicate) and they get an epiphany and understand that concept.

“Oh, I see, running a red light is wrong. I get it now.”

Plus, who doesn’t like violence?